The registration for the open bracket at gamescom is now available. It will close at midnight on the 29th of July, CEST. 16 of the 32 spots are available this way. The other will be filled at the venue itself. The open bracket will be played out on the 15th of August, the first day of the gamescom. The top 8 will advance into the $31.800 main tournament.

Additional information Price is 50 Euros, to be paid via PayPal Price includes a trade show visitor ticket, valid for entire duration If you qualify for the main tournament via the open bracket, $600 are guaranteed

The Open Bracket F.A.Q.

Every StarCraft II tournament in the new season of the Intel Extreme Masters will feature 24 players. 16 of those will qualify online and 8 will qualify through an open bracket tournament played on the first day of gamescom.

How can I participate in the Open Bracket?
There will be 32 spots in the open bracket. The open bracket is reserved for players that were unable to participate in the event qualifier or got knocked out early. 16 spots will be available for booking for known SC2 professionals.

The other 16 spots will be distributed between players that sign up in person one day before the event on a first come - first serve basis. This is aimed to make sure both top pros and aspiring local players still have a chance to compete in the main event.

Open bracket spots will be made available after the conclusion of the Intel Extreme Masters online qualifiers so that players that have not qualified online could still compete at the event.

How will it be played out?
The open bracket tournament will be divided into 4 double elimination brackets of 8 players each. The winners of the upper bracket and the lower bracket will be seeded into the main event with a high and low seed, respectively. The double elimination bracket finals will not be played out.

How do the open bracket players fit into the main event?
The main event will have 24 players with 4 groups of 6 players. It will start only after the open bracket has concluded and the 8 main event participants from the open bracket are known.

Each group will consist of 4 players qualified online, 1 high seed open bracket player and 1 low seed open bracket player (from a different open bracket).

A total of 12 players, top 3 from each group, will advance to the playoffs, with group winners getting a free win in the 1st round. It is the same system as the one used at the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship.